


In golden light

by Carry_the_Fire



Series: Fire's Ferdibert "week" 2020 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gender Issues, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:08:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carry_the_Fire/pseuds/Carry_the_Fire
Summary: When his family's summer home at Lake Aegir is set to be converted to a boarding academy, Ferdinand pays it one last visit and contemplates his complicated relationship with family, love, and legacy.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Series: Fire's Ferdibert "week" 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871365
Comments: 26
Kudos: 83





	In golden light

**Author's Note:**

> For Ferdibert week* 2020 day 7: Rewind. 
> 
> With thanks to S and H for their patience, support, and bottomless thought exchange.
> 
> (*I know, I know.)

Ferdinand stands with his hand on the gate of the Aegir summer home, hair tangled from the long ride and the juice of an apple fresh on his tongue. Behind him lies the lush orchard path, the comfrey and yarrow that line it a little overgrown in the shade of the branches he used to swing from as a boy. It’s late autumn, and the trees are mostly picked clean. Still, it was only a short climb to fetch one for himself and one for Allegretta, whom he left to graze back at the main road.

Before him, the house stands quiet and dignified, a little neglected but by no means ruined. This place was spared the ravages of the war, too far removed from any location of strategic import to become a target of the Empire’s enemies, and too infrequently used by his family to become a target of his father’s. The ivy has grown a little further up the walls than his mother would have approved of, and the hydrangeas are uncut well past their mid-year peak. But aside from a little wildness, it is exactly as he remembers.

Closing his eyes a minute, Ferdinand takes a deep breath and listens to the summer sounds of his boyhood. A soft breeze rustles the leaves on the trees; birds and bugs chirp through the gardens; Lake Aegir laps at the shore on the far side of the house. Only his sisters’ laughter is missing.

Steeling himself, Ferdinand opens his eyes, unlatches the gate, and lets himself in.

* * *

_It is the summer of Imperial Year 1169, and Ferdinand is seven years old._

_When the Aegirs’ carriage pulls up, Reuben and Genevieve are waiting at the orchard gate, their faces sun-darkened and hands callused from minding the grounds, though they’ve scrubbed up to greet their employers. To his disappointment, Alice — their daughter, Ferdinand’s age plus a few months — is not with them, but they reassure him she will finish her chores soon and come play. After a moment’s consideration he accepts the answer and goes to pet the carriage horses. Meanwhile, the servants begin to unload their trunks, and his mother tries unsuccessfully to quiet baby Cecilia, who is displeased with the long, stuffy journey from Aegir Manor._

_The family settles into their summer residence. With his father away in Enbarr, Ferdinand stays outdoors as much as his mother and his governess will allow. He spends most of the long days gallivanting around the estate with Alice and occasionally with his sister Lena, though she is still too little for most of his favorite activities. They catch tadpoles and crayfish in the shallows of the lake; they pilfer underripe fruit from the gardens and make faces at the sour taste; they seek out Old Carolynn to listen to her stories about the deeds of the saints told in the records of the stars._

_Every stranger’s face is kind, every place is his to explore, and every day brings new things to learn and do. Ferdinand is young and fearless and full of love._

* * *

Ferdinand shuts the front door gently, the motion sending flecks of dust dancing in the sunlight coming in through the parlor windows. As he looks around the room, he shucks his riding coat, hesitating before laying it over the back of the rocking chair his grandmother Eleonore used to favor.

Despite the dust, the place is generally well kept. The couch and chairs still ring the parlor table, home to so many games of cards and glasses of lemonade. The handsome wood floors are still cushioned with ornate rugs, onto which Ferdinand once tracked a great deal of mud (for which he once received a great deal of scolding). The boxy pianoforte still sits in the corner with its delicate, yellowed keys.

On a whim, Ferdinand steps to it, brushing some of the dust off the keyboard and pressing into it a near-forgotten arrangement of fingers. The instrument responds with a sweet chord, off-key and tinnier than he remembers, but pleasant all the same.

* * *

_It is the summer of Imperial Year 1173, and Ferdinand is eleven years old._

_The sun has finally set, but a mix of candles and sigil-lights keep the parlor bright and lively for its many fiery-haired occupants. Aunt Josephine sits at the keyboard, her practiced fingers coaxing out the underpinnings of “When the Flowers Are In Bloom” from the instrument. Her two daughters stand behind her, improvising harmonies for the familiar tune, while little Cecilia stares entranced at her aunt’s deft hands._

_Ferdinand grows bored with the game his boy cousins are playing — Augustus always cheats, anyway — and wanders over to the singers, who have moved on to “Annaleigh Is No More.” At an encouraging nod from his grandmother, he joins in, delighting in the feeling of his voice harmonizing with his cousins’. He doesn’t know enough to take on anything but the melody, but he carries it proudly, and the others don’t seem to find his participation objectionable._

_When they finish the song, the singers flip through Aunt Josephine’s book in search of another, and Grandmother Eleonore looks up from her cross-stitch._

_“Ferdinand has quite a lovely voice,” she remarks to her son, who arrived from Enbarr just that afternoon._

_Ludwig casts a distracted look at the crowd around the pianoforte. Ferdinand has learned to spot the irritation in his father’s eyes (sometimes, he wonders how much of it he missed before he knew to look)._

_“If you say so,” says Ludwig, and returns his attention to the thick packet of letters he’s brought with him from the capital._

_Ferdinand isn’t sure what he’s done to displease his father, but he sings a little more carefully on the next song, just in case._

* * *

The kitchen is the least ornate of all the rooms in the house, a neat, utilitarian space with a clear place for every pan and ladle. Ferdinand never spent much time in it except to pester the cooks for sweets for Cecilia or an extra serving of supper to bring to Alice, but he pokes his head in nonetheless, just to see how it’s held up.

Everything is as he remembers. The great cast iron stove still commands the room, the wall behind it discolored from old smoke. They’d switched to sigil-heating around the time such things became safe for household use, but the smoke stains remained, the damage already done.

His eyes trail over the wall-mounted rack of cooking utensils, some beginning to show signs of rust. Below them sits a maple knife block, every slot still filled. Though Genevieve had told him she’d kept an eye on the house, Ferdinand admits he still expected (hoped?) the staff would have pilfered a few valuables when they were dismissed. But not a thing is out of place. It is as if the whole place has been frozen in time.

* * *

_It is the summer of Imperial Year 1174, and Ferdinand is twelve years old._

_Now that the office of the Prime Minister is the most powerful and important in all Adrestia, Duke Aegir will be spending all but the last week of the season in Enbarr. Ferdinand used to be disappointed when his father wouldn’t join them at the lakeside, but the feeling has lessened as he’s gotten older. Now the summer stretches before him welcomingly, free of lessons in etiquette and political maneuvering and courtly tradition, ripe with sun-dappled days for climbing trees in the orchard and starlit nights for lying out on the dock, the singing of cicadas in the air._

_Determined to make the most of it, Ferdinand throws himself into the season like he does all things._

_In the mornings, he helps Alice with her chores, bringing bushels of laundry from the main house to the servants’ cottages or gathering eggs from the coop out back. His mother chides him for this, reminding him that he shouldn’t be doing the work of a servant in his own household. But he tells her it is important for a noble to understand the day-to-day of the common folk, and she seems to accept the answer, even though really he just wants Alice finished with her tasks sooner so they can play._

_Once Alice is liberated, they will spend the afternoon concocting some adventure or another: playing hide-and-seek in the gardens with Lena and Cecilia, riding horses through the flowering meadows, play-fighting with wooden swords until they’re both filthy and exhausted. Once, Alice shows him how to shoot stones from a slingshot, and he nearly hits a woodpecker where it’s drilling incessantly into an old magnolia tree. Another time he teaches her one of the prim dances his governess insists will be very important to know when he is older, the two of them moving in stately circles around each other under the apple trees and giggling at the preposterousness of it all._

_In the evenings he will wash himself in the lake and come to supper, where he will excitedly inform his family of the day’s exploits and inquire after their own, trying to heed his mother’s reminder to keep his talking and his chewing separate._

_The evenings will be spent playing cards or reading stories with his sisters, or sometimes drawing with charcoal stubs on old paper pilfered from their father’s near-unused study. By the end of the summer, all the Aegir children are a little tanner and wilder than they were before, even little Cecilia, who would rather spend hours plunking away at the pianoforte than cavorting around the grounds with her older brother and sister._

_One afternoon late in the summer, when Alice has been called away to help with the mending, the three of them are sitting in the shade of the orchard, weaving flowers into one another’s hair. Ferdinand’s was already getting long when they left for the summer, and now it nearly brushes his shoulders, though it’s of course still much shorter than Lena’s or Cecilia’s, which tumble down their backs in lovely waves._

_When they finish Cece’s nest of blooms and braids, Lena shows Ferdinand how to do her hair in a Gloucester twist, woven with pink azaleas. When that is done, they insist on doing Ferdinand’s, the two girls kneeling beside their brother to tuck white yarrow blossoms into loosely woven strands of his orange locks._

_“You look like a prince,” Cecilia declares, her chubby face stretched wide with a smile. Lena concurs and decides they ought to weave a crown for him, rushing off to the house garden and returning with handfuls of honeysuckle and aster. Ferdinand insists on three crowns, one for each of them, so she goes to get more, the knees of her summer dress yet more soiled on her return._

_They are quite caught up in their weaving and giggling, so none of them hears the clopping of hooves on the distant main road, or the shutting of a carriage door, or the squeak of the orchard gate. The shadow of Ludwig von Aegir falls across them without preamble, sending three little necks craning upward. Cecilia’s face lights up and she leaps to her feet, her siblings scrambling to follow suit with more tempered expressions._

_“Father!” cries Cece, rushing to kiss his glove, though he has not raised it to her. “Look, look, we have made—”_

_“—Ferdinand,” Duke Aegir interrupts, his face reddened, though it’s unclear if he’s overheated from the carriage ride or taken with some sudden emotion. “Walk with me.”_

_His hand descends on his son’s arm before Ferdinand can even attempt to comply, jerking him down the path towards the house. Ferdinand feels his sisters’ eyes on him, hears their yawning silence as he’s dragged off, but he doesn’t dare look back._

_“Father, I—” Ferdinand begins, but Ludwig’s grip tightens and he shuts his mouth, sensing he can only worsen the situation._

_When they enter the house, he’s marched into the kitchen and pushed to sit on the churning stool. The cook and his assistants bow quickly and look away, going about their business as though they didn’t even see them come in._

_Ferdinand sits very still as Ludwig strides to the knife block and pulls out the kitchen shears. For a surreal moment, he thinks he is about to harm him, though he knows his father to be an upright nobleman who would never lift a hand to his family. Instead, Ludwig grabs a fistful of Ferdinand’s hair, dislodging a few sprigs of yarrow, lifts the shears, and begins to cut it away._

_It doesn’t hurt, really. There is no reason to cry. Ferdinand does anyway, which only seems to displease his father more. Ludwig’s face is a deep red as he works the blades closer to Ferdinand’s scalp and his daughters’ work drops to the floor piece by piece. By the end of it, the stone tile beside the stool is littered with little white flowers and cut marigold waves, and both father and son are trembling._

_They freeze like that a moment, Ferdinand’s red eyes fixed on the far wall, Ludwig looming over him with shears still in hand._

_“To your room,” says Ludwig finally, pointing through the door like Ferdinand needs directions. “There will be no need to come down for supper tonight.”_

_Without protest, Ferdinand complies, hurrying down the hall and taking the stairs two at a time. When his door is safely shut, he crumples into bed and runs shaking hands through what remains of his hair, the sobs he managed to hold back in the kitchen bubbling out of his throat afresh. From downstairs, he hears his father calling for his mother, and curls into himself to cry harder, the full reality of the trouble he’s caused dawning on him._

_One of the servants evens out his haircut the next day, but there’s not a lot to be done with such a close crop. For the last week of the summer, Ferdinand mostly stays in his room, reading histories and almanacs and watching the odd osprey catch fish from the lake. His sisters smuggle him pastries and apples, trying to cheer him up; he does his best to make them believe it’s working. He bids Alice goodbye on the last day with a quiet voice, grateful when she doesn’t ask about his absence or his changed appearance._

_The Aegirs don’t speak about the incident again._

_The day they return to the main manor, though, Lena takes Ludwig’s ceremonial hunting knife from his study and cuts off her own long, beautiful hair, and it becomes Ferdinand’s turn to sneak her treats._

* * *

In the dining room, the curtains are drawn over the picture windows to prevent all the beautiful maple furniture from fading. Ferdinand pulls one side back to look outside, and finds the view is just as breathtaking as he remembers. Through the thick, autumn-rich foliage of the trees, slivers of Lake Aegir gleam in the late afternoon sun, and the red-gold of the far shore is bathed in light. 

Knowing where to look, Ferdinand can make out the stone steps that lead down the steep hill to the lake below, though the path is considerably overgrown. Somehow, he still expects to see a servant in transit, or children playing down on the dock. But the grounds are quite still, only birdsong punctuating the serenity of it all.

Letting the curtain fall back, Ferdinand turns back to the dim room. Someone — a member of the departed household staff, no doubt — has covered the grand table with a rough linen tablecloth. On the wall, the mounted stag head still stares down blankly, its antlers grey-topped with dust like the fur of the mountain lion beside it. Lena had given them silly names at one point, though Ferdinand can’t actually remember them. He’d always made a point of sitting facing the windows, not his father’s trophies.

* * *

_It is the winter of Imperial Year 1176, and Ferdinand is fourteen years old._

_It is the first time his father has allowed him to come on the annual winter hunt at Lake Aegir, and the first time Ferdinand has been to the lake house outside summertime. Aegir is fairly temperate — it isn’t snowy like Faerghus or even wind-battered like Nuvelle — but it’s cold enough to make gloves and scarves a good idea, and bathing in the lake every day a chilly proposition. Ferdinand finds it strange to spend so much time indoors, especially with the stink of the noblemen’s cigars rather than the fragrance of jasmine and honeysuckle hanging in the air._

_Mostly, though, he finds it strange to be here without his sisters or his mother. Duke Gerth has brought his wife (at least, Ferdinand_ thinks _it’s his wife) but aside from her and the various servants, the company consists entirely of men. In a way it’s exciting, to be included in this private tradition with some of the most powerful noblemen in Adrestia. In another way, it’s rather lonely._

_Ferdinand seeks out Alice the morning after they arrive, finding her mucking out the horses’ stalls with her brown hair tied back in a practical knot. After offering a quick greeting, he picks up a pitchfork and begins to help, but she asks him not to, gently at first and then more forcefully, surprising him into silence. Her demeanor is chillier than he’s seen before. He wants to ask if something is wrong, but something in her expression — not cruel, but guarded and hard — suggests he should drop the matter._

_Swallowing his questions, he apologizes for any offense he’s given and goes to take his leave. Upon exiting the stable, he encounters Duke Gerth, who is apparently out for a morning stroll through the grounds, and who seems to have overheard the exchange._

_“Be persistent,” says the duke with a knowing wink. “The pretty ones are worth it.”_

_Ferdinand’s face colors and he tries to stammer out an explanation, but the man just laughs and claps his shoulder, continuing on his way._

* * *

The stairwell is home to a dozen or so paintings, from delicate watercolors no larger than a dinner plate to an enormous oil portrait of a rearing warhorse that takes up most of the landing. As Ferdinand mounts the creaking stairs, he remembers standing before that painting as a little boy, awed by the creature’s size and power. His father had told him it was the steed of Derick von Aegir, the Warrior Prime Minister, but Ferdinand had had to learn from his history books that her name was Otrera, after a warrior queen of pre-Sothian mythology. 

Under Otrera’s noble gaze, Ferdinand hesitates at the top of the stairwell. He rests a hand on the railing of the little indoor balcony and looks down on the sitting room below. 

His eyes see past the dust on the cream-colored sofa and the matching loveseat, past the fading of the elegant chaise or the fine armchairs. Ghostly figures flicker in and out of his vision, summers and springs and winters with his mother and father and sisters and aunts and cousins, dukes and ministers and counts and cooks and attendants, a din of dim voices murmuring over one another through the veil of his memory. His governess, teaching him the proper way to sit in the company of a lady; Lena, spilling tea on the chaise and saying she liked the color better that way anyway. His father, speaking in low voices with Marquis Vestra late at night, the gravity palpable even to the little boy at the railing above, up for a drink of water.

And then the air stirs, and instead of the past Ferdinand sees a glimpse of a possible future. Bright young minds gather under the high ceilings, their voices alight with earnest passion, sharing their studies and ideas and challenging one another to surpass their previous limits. A haven for a privileged few transformed into a place of learning and belonging for the Empire’s brightest, no matter the circumstances of their birth. 

After a lingering moment, Ferdinand returns to the present and turns away from the railing, giving one more glance to the magnificent mare in the painting. Her dark eyes look out over the room, as though witnessing the whole arc of the place. 

It’s a silly thought, but he hopes she’ll be pleased with what they’ll make of it.

* * *

_It is the summer of Imperial Year 1177, and Ferdinand is fifteen years old._

_This year, he spends the first half of the summer in Enbarr, shadowing his father to learn more about what it is to be the Prime Minister of Adrestia. He attends meetings, taking diligent notes on the nuances of trade and taxes between the different territories of the Empire. He meets dignitaries and puts to work the many lessons of his stern-eyed governess, adapting his mannerisms and speech to their respective cultural norms. He explores the galleries and museums and historical sites of Enbarr._

_He’s surprised at how little his father meets with Emperor Ionius, even though he understands that the emperor’s role is mostly ceremonial since the Insurrection. Ferdinand is also surprised at how often his father dismisses him from meetings with Lord Arundel or Marquis Vestra, giving him leave to explore the capital or pay visits to Enbarr’s resident nobility or attend the opera, which Ferdinand does often, though his favorite soprano has long since left the company._

_The summer also provides him with several occasions to spend time with the imperial princess (and by extension, the looming heir of House Vestra, who seems fastened to her side). Knowing it will someday be his duty to lead the country with and through the Hresvelg girl, Ferdinand does his best to leave a good impression. He takes every opportunity to demonstrate the qualities that make a capable Prime Minister: his knowledge of Adrestian history and policy, his mastery of courtly etiquette, his prowess at riding and axe-wielding and lancework. Despite this, after a month and a half, Princess Edelgard and her shadow don’t seem to think much of him, the latter barely concealing a contemptuous sneer most of the time they interact._

_Finally,_ finally, _Ferdinand is dismissed from the capital and sent to join his mother and sisters at Lake Aegir. He declines the carriage offered by the imperial household and instead makes the journey on horseback, delighting in the freedom of the open road and the rest of summer ahead of him. It takes him a day and a half, stopping at an inn recommended by one of the imperial stablehands on the way, but at last he’s unlatching the gate and leading his well-run stallion through the shade of the orchard._

_When Brio is brushed down and properly pastured, Ferdinand goes to find his family. He finds his mother in the parlor, reading a novella with a glass of Ordelia white in hand. She greets him warmly enough, inquiring after his father’s well-being and commending him on making the journey all on his own, and informs him that his sisters are down by the dock._

_As it turns out, Alice is with them as well. She and Lena and Cecilia are dangling their bare legs in the cool of the lake, laughing and talking and animatedly, but the conversation dries up as soon as Lena turns and sees Ferdinand coming down the path. Alice quickly adjusts her skirts so they fall back over her knees and all three rise to greet him._

_Cecilia throws her arms around his waist and squeezes; Lena embraces him next and claps his back harder than is strictly necessary. Alice curtseys and expresses her pleasure that he has arrived safely, standing a respectful pace back. When he asks what had them giggling so, the three girls share a look and a laugh and say nothing._

_It marks the beginning of a different sort of dynamic between them. Where once Ferdinand was a co-conspirator in their adventures, he now feels like an intruder, finding himself left uninformed of swimming excursions, scolded for not knowing the rules of games that never had them before, giggled at for reasons he can’t suss out. He takes some comfort in the fact that Alice’s winter coldness is gone, replaced by a new sort of shyness that makes her reluctant to look him in the eye, but guarantees a genuine smile when their gazes do meet. Still, he misses the easiness of previous summers, the way she used to challenge him to footraces and teach him about the distinctions between the different sorts of frogs in the lake. He supposes it is the price he pays for missing the first half of the summer._

_He learns to give the girls space, eventually. He takes Brio out for long rides, swims by himself, spars in the evenings with a groundskeeper who used to be a lancer in the Imperial Army. He studies the documents he brought from Enbarr and practices writing speeches after the styles of different noted orators. He doesn’t try to help Alice with her chores anymore, or offer to braid Cecilia’s hair before bed. Lena still asks him to teach her swordsmanship, but this requires a lot of sneaking around behind their mother’s back, and eventually she seems to decide it isn’t worth the hassle._

_Horsebow Moon comes, and for the first time he can remember, Ferdinand is ready to go home when the summer ends._

_On the carriage ride back to the manor, he looks out the window and thinks of Princess Edelgard and her retainer sharing looks they think he doesn’t notice, of Alice and his sisters trading secrets on the dock, of the easy bond between the Hevring and Bergliez heirs, who despite their distant territories live in adjoining estates in Enbarr most of the year. He is not unhappy — how can he be, with such an exciting and important destiny before him? — but there is a hollowness in him that he’d never noticed before._

* * *

The door to Ferdinand’s old room squeals on its hinges when he presses it open. Even more so than the rest of the house, it seems years untouched, a sun-faded square marked clearly into the crimson carpet and a fine collection of wasp corpses littering the windowsills. Stepping to the window, he lifts it a little, letting in the crisp autumn breeze to relieve the stuffiness and the dust.

Even through the musty air, the smell of the room is familiar — faded jasmine and orange and honeysuckle from the tea leaves he kept in his desk; faint leather and black turpentine from the armor he’d maintained for practice. He closes his eyes a moment to breathe in the scent, and immediately sneezes.

On the wall, the drawings Lena and Cecilia made as little girls remain, clumsy attempts at horses and knights and of course, the three of them. On the bookshelf, the volumes are double-rowed to accommodate his childhood appetite for fables and histories and philosophies, the odd romance novel stashed behind. His bed is neatly made, if quite dusty. The floorboard next to it is still loose under his booted toe. 

Ferdinand pulls a knife from his belt and kneels to pull back the rug. All it takes is a little jimmying and the wood pops up, revealing the little stash beneath. Some of the trinkets have significance so old, he can’t even remember — a particularly smooth rock from the lakebed, a half-intact doll made from dried cornhusks, a single rusted iron spur. Then there are things he remembers: a braided leather cord that had matched one Alice wore around her ankle the summer when they were ten; an arrowhead from the first hunt his father had allowed him to join; a playbill, faded and folded into nearly nothing, from a long-defunct local troupe. 

Until now, Ferdinand has left the place untouched, even though he is theoretically here to collect anything of personal value before the renovations begin. His gloved hand lifts each of the items in turn, then returns them all to the space in the floor for some student to find and wonder over in the years to come. Then, at the last second, he plucks the playbill from its place and tucks it into the breast pocket of his vest. He works the floorboard back into place, smooths down the rug, and rises to leave the room.

* * *

_It is the spring of Imperial Year 1180, and Ferdinand is seventeen years old, though not for much longer._

_Before the next moon, he will leave Aegir to attend the Officers Academy at Garreg Mach. Upon graduation, he will relocate permanently to Enbarr, acting as an aide to his father until it is time for him to assume the role of Prime Minister._

_He is more than ready for all of this. He has dedicated the last few years to a single-minded self-betterment, honing all of his good qualities into great qualities. He is stronger, more knowledgeable, and more confident than he has ever been. The hollow feeling has never quite gone away, but he has found many ways to work around it — exchanging letters with a like-minded colleague in Gloucester, riding and tending to the magnificent horses of the Aegir stables, cajoling Cecilia into playing and singing arias from their favorite operas (and joining in, if his father isn’t home)._

_Because his birthday will fall during the academic year, and his mother insists they must celebrate early so as to celebrate properly, the Aegirs arrange to attend a special performance of a new opera in the regional theater. Duke Aegir takes a carriage back from Enbarr to join his wife and children for the weekend, only complaining a little about the inconvenience. They dress in their finest clothes, Ferdinand even dabbing a tiny amount of Lena’s mandarin-scented perfume on the insides of his wrists when she isn’t looking._

_Having seen the incomparable Manuela Cassagandra take the stage often as a little boy, Ferdinand is forever ruined for regional theater. The troupe is no Mittelfrank, but the opera itself is quite captivating. The harmonic language is unusual, lingering in dissonance and wandering through modulation after modulation. Ferdinand finds the eventual resolutions are made all the sweeter for the long journey, and remarks as much to Cecilia during the intermission, prompting her to monologue on the technical complexity of such a technique. He learns from his little sister, among other things, that the instrumentation is also novel, featuring woodwinds in close, tender harmonies that might have gone to the strings in a more traditional production._

_But perhaps most unusual and fascinating to him is the story. It is a romance, like so many of Ferdinand’s favorites, but there is no villain to threaten the lead soprano’s virtue, just a series of tragic misunderstandings that leave the central couple estranged and forlorn. And in the supporting roles, the respective manservants of the romantic leads attempt to push their masters towards reconciliation and share their own tangled fate, complete with a shocking and tender kiss in the final act._

_Ferdinand has heard of such things, of course. He has heard of the time Count Varley discovered two of his guards carrying on a temperamental partnership and discharged them from not just his service, but the territory. He has heard that a daughter of Baron Boramas renounced her family name to run off with one of her maidservants, and has not been heard from since. He has even heard that there is a district in Enbarr, mostly populated by artists, where such unions are so tolerated as to be commonplace. But never before has he seen something like that kiss, brief and clumsily performed as it was._

_He feels off-balance as the curtain falls and the little theater resounds with applause. Beside him, his sisters clap while his mother folds her hands carefully in her lap, watching from the corner of her eyes her husband, whose own hands are clenched in fists on the arms of his seat._

_Ferdinand lingers in the haunting final chords, barely noticing any of it. He doesn’t remember donning his coat or exiting the theater or helping his sisters into the carriage. He doesn’t remember the click of the door when it shuts, or how the argument between Ludwig and Lena starts. But he remembers his father’s words, thick with disgust, as he swears he’ll ensure the troupe never plays in Aegir again, or anywhere in Adrestia if he can manage it. He remembers spittle flying as Lena retaliates with unbridled contempt, calling their father a coward and a bigot. He remembers his mother’s tired attempts to put a stop to the shouting and Cecilia’s anxious crying and the hurried clopping of hooves as the drivers urge the horses homeward. But most of all he remembers his own silence, and the memory of the kiss like it had been laid on his own lips._

_The next day, Lena is gone, her horse Amaretto missing from the stables. While Ludwig bellows at the stablery guards, Ferdinand saddles up Brio and takes off, the playbill from the opera still in the pocket of his fine waistcoat, which he accidentally donned in his hurry to dress at his mother’s cry of dismay._

_Lena is as fine a rider as any child of Aegir, but she is predictable, and he tracks Amaretto’s hoofprints easily in the dusty northwest road. After two and a half hours' hard riding, he finds her at Reuben and Genevieve’s cottage by the lake, tucking into a lunch of smoked meat and barley bread as Alice picks a tangle out of her windswept hair. When Ferdinand appears in the doorway, his sister gives him a defiant, accusatory look._

_“I thought you were different,” she says bitterly._

_Ferdinand feels his throat close with unexpected shame._

_“I am,” he chokes out._

_The truth has never frightened him so much._

* * *

Cecilia’s bedroom is as undisturbed as his own was. Ferdinand opens the windows there too, remembering the sound of their mother’s lullabies drifting through the summer air when Cece couldn’t sleep. Her bookshelf is crowded, like his, but with manuscripts and scores and songbooks and the odd novel. He wonders if he should have her collection sent to her in Albinea, if she’d even open a delivery from him at this point. He decides against it, and leaves the room as he found it.

He lingers in Lena’s room next, running his hand over the carved pegasus figurine on her dresser, taking in the sight of her bird’s-egg blue bedspread. He remembers sitting on the end of it when they were little, reading myths to her from his compendium, his tongue tripping over the vocabulary of a book too advanced for his age, her chin hooked over his shoulder to take in the illustrations. 

Some of her clothes still hang in the closet, summer things for a lithe girl of fifteen. They’re surprisingly well-preserved, considering their age — she would have been twenty-four this month. As far as he knows, she never returned to the lake house after the war broke out. 

He’s tempted to take the wooden pegasus, but in the end he leaves it. Lena’s shield already hangs in his study in Enbarr, and he’s only entitled to so much.

* * *

_It is the spring of Imperial Year 1180, and Ferdinand is eighteen years old._

_In the span of twenty-four hours, his world has turned on its head. His father is on house arrest in the capital, awaiting trial for crimes far more terrible than Ferdinand had dreamed. Edelgard is the emperor of Adrestia, and apparently the Flame Emperor too. Archbishop Rhea is a monster in the most literal of senses._

_Now he knows the truth behind the Insurrection, behind the subjugation of Hrym, behind the vanished Hresvelg heirs. There was never any blood sickness in the imperial lineage. There was never any heresy from Ordelia. There was only the treachery of his father and his accomplices, the triumph of oligarchy over monarchy, all the innocent lives caught up and crushed in their machinations._

_While the Imperial Army prepares for the assault on Garreg Mach, Edelgard gives Ferdinand leave to travel to Aegir to see his mother and sisters. Hubert sees him off at dawn, presumably to ensure he doesn’t steal anything in the process of deserting. Ferdinand makes sure to ride close enough to get plenty of dust on the mage’s dark robes on his way out._

_He reaches the manor in the early evening, just as the sun is beginning to set. There are several large carts out front, some already loaded with furniture and art, others empty and waiting. Soldiers are carrying plush chairs and mahogany end tables and crystal sigil lamps down the front steps, working efficiently, though not without care. Evelynne, who has managed the staff for thirty years, stands on the porch with a distant expression on her wrinkled face._

_Ferdinand finds his mother and sisters upstairs in his parents’ private sitting room. The soldiers have clearly not been up here yet; the walls are still hung with paintings and tapestries and his late grandmother’s elaborate, gold-framed cross-stitching. Lena sits perched on the end of a chair, fingers drumming a pattern against the armrest. Cecilia is pressed up against her mother on the couch with her legs drawn up, Helenia’s hand stroking through her silky, strawberry-blonde hair._

_“Ferdinand,” greets Lena as he appears in the doorway. She rises quickly to her feet and rushes for him, and for a split second he thinks she is going to strike him. But before he can decide if he’d deserve that, she’s pulling him in for a fierce hug, his toes barely staying on the ground as she squeezes tight._

_When she lets go, he takes a seat opposite the couch, back and thighs aching from undertaking such a long ride just days after the battle in the Holy Tomb. He is exhausted and thirsty and hungry, but the looks on their faces tell him his discomfort must wait. He is the head of House Aegir now, whether or not the title means anything to the Empire, and their needs must come first._

_As calmly as he is able, he ascertains what his family already knows and explains all that he can of what they don’t. His mother’s face is impassive as he describes Ludwig’s misdeeds — the abducted Hresvelg children, the punishing taxation and forced labor of Hrym, the corruption and embezzlement and treason. They ask him if it’s true that Minister Vestra was assassinated, and if he thinks Father will meet the same fate. He doesn’t know, and doesn’t lie to them about it._

_“Do you trust the emperor?” Lena asks finally, when he’s answered everything he can about the facts of it all._

_A flicker of a dark shadow passes over his mother’s face._

_“Yes,” says Ferdinand, without hesitation. “Her ambitions, if not her methods. It is my duty now to guide her on the right path to her ends.”_

_Lena nods. The others are silent._

_“Does she trust_ you?” asks Lena.

_Ferdinand pauses, thinking._

_“She will,” he says, after a beat. “She will in time.”_

_He hopes he’s right._

* * *

On the door to Duke Aegir’s lake house study is a ceremonial sword, mounted in its scabbard, the hilt adorned with twisted gold and the sheath inlaid with tiny pieces of ruby and onyx. Ferdinand used to think it was stunning. He imagined it once belonged to a mighty ancestor, someone feared and respected on the battlefield and throughout the Empire. More than once, he was scolded for playing with it, swinging the heavy thing around the study or the hallway and fancying himself the Warrior Prime Minister.

Now, he finds it rather silly. If Derick von Aegir ever owned such a weapon, he probably used it about as much as Ludwig von Aegir did. The battlefield is no place for mindless decoration. 

The study beyond the sword is less ornamental, though not by much. In the summers they spent at the lake, Duke Aegir would shut himself in it for a few hours every evening, claiming to attend to imperial business. And as a little boy, Ferdinand used to sit in the great leather chair and imagine a future in which it was _his_ pen shaping new realities for all of Adrestia. 

But of course, Ferdinand learned later that his father’s time at his desk was more often an excuse to escape his wife and children for a while, smoke a cigar, and drink expensive port. What work _did_ cross Ludwig von Aegir’s desk at Lake Aegir was the sort of business he wanted to keep far from the Emperor’s eyes: intelligence gathered by Marquis Vestra’s agents on houses still loyal to the Imperial Family, correspondence with foreign agents whose policies he would champion for the right price, reports on the progress of the unofficial tax collection programs he’d established in Hrym. 

Now, after many years of disuse, the room is dark and smells a little sour, and the sight of the broad cherrywood desk inspires more unease than awe. Ferdinand has more or less come to terms with his father’s legacy, but not with his own relation to it, nor with his persistent desire to take pride in the Aegir name and lineage, and the shame he feels at clinging to it after everything that has come to pass.

* * *

_It is the autumn of Imperial Year 1182, and Ferdinand is twenty years old._

_The war has stretched on for nearly two years now. Despite his best efforts, he has not yet earned a place in Emperor Edelgard’s full confidence, though he has been promoted to captain of a cavalry unit, and more recently, been entrusted with some administrative tasks related to the import of necessities from Brigid and Dagda._

_Many things can change in two years, particularly years of such brutal conflict. Ferdinand no longer hears from his family with any regularity, though he assumes Edelgard or Hubert would tell him if his mother or sisters had fled Aegir. When letters do arrive, they arrive carelessly re-sealed, and contain little substance. He’s a little lost without their correspondence and counsel, particularly Lena’s, but he’s careful not to show it, aware that his loyalty to the new order is still very much under scrutiny._

_Other things are more familiar. The hollow, which he first felt that summer when something unnamed set him apart from his sisters, has become his close companion. For the first several months of the war it yawned and burned, deepened by the emptiness his name and title used to fill. But Ferdinand also bears a sincere desire to prove himself worthy of the world Edelgard wants to build, and the two feelings battle in him daily, his moods vacillating between despair and steely determination._

_Early in the Red Wolf Moon, there is a rainy day at Garreg Mach when the training ground is treacherously muddy for Ferdinand’s morning drills with his battalion. When they’re done, he makes a stop in the communal washrooms to clean up. Afterwards, re-dressed in a clean shirt and breeches, he brings his mud-splattered greaves and pauldron to the armory, where he encounters a man about his own age buffing a collection of shields._

_His name is Alber, Ferdinand learns, and he is one of the armorers tasked with keeping the Imperial Army outfitted with dependable equipment. As Ferdinand wipes down his gear, they get to talking about the proper care of galvanized versus ungalvanized steel, and it is such an easy, pleasant conversation that when he’s finished with his armor, Ferdinand offers to help with the rest of the shields. After the shields it’s lances, and after the lances it’s gauntlets, and after the gauntlets it’s the warm press of Alber's mouth on his own, the thrum of the rain drowning out the hammering of his giddy, fearful heart as they kiss with unpracticed enthusiasm behind a rack of spears._

_Ferdinand lies awake that night and tries to decide if he should be ashamed. He doesn’t reach a conclusion, but two days later he’s back in the armory, this time on his knees in the dark of the supply closet with Alber’s fingers tangled into his too-long hair. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he applies his usual focus and eagerness, and Alber doesn’t seem to mind._

_It happens two more times, late-night rendezvous between the barrels of sand and the shelves of oils and scabbards and protective waxes. They slink back to their rooms after, dazed and delighted. And then the next week, without warning, everything comes apart._

_When Ferdinand comes to return his equipment after his drills, Alber is not in the armory. He spots him later that afternoon by the stables, but his wave and eager smile go unacknowledged. Sensing a change, Ferdinand glances around to ensure no one else is in earshot as he approaches, then asks in a quiet voice if anything is wrong._

_“You didn’t tell me,” says Alber, voice gruff as he pauses in the doorway, a box of horseshoes under one arm._

_“Tell you what?” asks Ferdinand, with a faint sense of dread._

_Alber stares at him like he’s trying to make sense of him._

_“That you’re an Aegir.”_

_The words sound like an accusation. But rather than hatred, the other man’s tone carries mistrust, even fear. Somehow, that’s worse._

_“I — I do not see why that should matter,” says Ferdinand, stumbling over words he couldn’t have imagined speaking only a year ago. “Is that not what we are fi—”_

_“You don’t get to pick when your name matters.”_

_Ferdinand reaches out to lay a beseeching hand on Alber’s arm, but the other man flinches away and he drops it helplessly back to his side._

_“I — I never meant to deceive you,” says Ferdinand. “It did not occur to me as something important to bring up in — in such pursuits.”_

_“My mother’s family is from Hrym,” says Alber, his voice deadly quiet. He’s looking at him like Ferdinand is a snake, coiled and ready to bite._

_Ferdinand swallows._

_“I didn’t know,” he says hoarsely, after a moment._

_A silence follows, strained and uneasy._

_“Goodbye, Ferdinand” says Alber at last, regretful but firm. He turns away, heading into the stables with his horseshoes and his kind brown eyes and his warm, callused hands._

_“Goodbye,” Ferdinand echoes as the hollow opens back up inside him, aching and empty and endless._

* * *

It takes him quite a while to go through his father’s desk. Though the duke’s accounts have long since been audited and many reparations issued, Ferdinand is wary of accidentally disposing of anything that might further illuminate the past. By the time he’s cleaned out the drawers, he has compiled a stack of ledgers for the Ministry of the Treasury to review against historical records, and a collection of personal correspondence he’ll want the Imperial Spymaster to check for hidden meaning. Usually, his father was brazen enough not to code even his more disreputable propositions, but better to be sure. Ferdinand has never had much of an eye for such things.

As he sets both files aside, Ferdinand casts a glance out the window to the lawn below. The shadows have begun to lengthen as the afternoon wears on. Through the trees, he can just make out the cottage where Reuben and Genevieve lived, marked by a thin plume of smoke from the chimney. The sight makes him smile faintly.

Turning his attention back to his father’s study, Ferdinand looks around at the art on the walls, the stately portraits of previous Dukes and Duchesses of Aegir, the now-antiquated map of Fódlan, embellished to the point that it’s more artistic than functional. He can’t help but hope that the room’s next occupants will do away with most of the current decor, give it a personal touch. 

He enjoys the thought for a moment, imagining Mercedes and Annette settling into their new roles as headmistresses, putting up new artwork — perhaps something by Ignatz or Bernadetta — and chatting animatedly across the desk’s broad surface about the students, the staff, the latest in gossip from Fhirdiad or Enbarr. They will be a terrific pair, he thinks, and can’t help but smile again.

On impulse, Ferdinand draws a sheet of paper from his father’s desk and finds a serviceable inkwell. He pens a quick note to the two of them, wishing them luck and encouraging them to help themselves to any of the fine liquors in his father’s cabinet. He sets it to dry on the desktop beneath a bronze paperweight, shaped like the Adrestian eagle, then rolls up his sleeves and moves on to tackle the file cabinets.

* * *

_It is the spring of Imperial Year 1184, and Ferdinand is twenty-one years old._

_On a cold and clear Wednesday, Emperor Edelgard officially asks him to take on the role of Prime Minister. On Thursday, he asks a private audience with her and, in a trembling voice, makes her aware of his aberrant proclivities._

_“I cannot in good faith let you make your decision with anything less than the full truth of who I am in hand,” he finishes, face burning as he forces himself to look her in the eye. He feels hot all over, though his hands are clammy and cold. He’s never felt like this in her presence, raw and ashamed, not even when Hubert had first relishingly described his father’s crimes to him._

_“Ferdinand,” Edelgard replies from across her desk, her eyes studying his expression. Her own is serious, but not unkind. “I fail to see why such a thing should have any bearing on your ability to serve.”_

_She knew already, he realizes, his stomach turning. Of course she did. He was a fool to think such a thing would escape notice, as infrequent as his lapses in restraint have been._

_“As Prime Minister, I will represent you, and all Fódlan,” he says. “There are many in Albinea, in Sreng, even in Enbarr, whose respect for the station of the Prime Minister would be diminished were it occupied by a man of my persuasion.”_

_“And yet Albinea and Sreng have done business with Almyra for many generations,” Edelgard points out. “As for Enbarr, I have no doubt you will apply yourself to the role so that even those who have breath to spare about your private life use it to discuss your policies instead.”_

_Ferdinand bites his lip._

_“Such matters are considered an insult to the Goddess by the Western Church, and most of Faerghus.”_

_“If we are victorious in this war, I doubt such a thing will be what defines Faerghan opinion of our administration.”_

_“The former nobility will say that—”_

_“—Ferdinand, do you_ want _to be Prime Minister?” Edelgard interrupts, setting down her quill. “I am beginning to think you oppose your own appointment.”_

_“No! Yes, I mean I—of course, I would be honored to serve,” Ferdinand hurries to say. “It has been my dream since I was a boy. I can swear myself to discretion—celibacy even, if you ask it of me—and of course I will marry whomever it is required to advance the interests of the Empire. But...it is a liability nonetheless, one I urge you to weigh as seriously as you weigh any other.”_

_Edelgard picks up her quill, glancing down at the half-finished letter on her desk before folding her hands and looking back at him._

_“Consider it weighed,” she says. “The offer stands. And for Sothis’ sake, Ferdinand, there’s no need for talk of marriages of alliance, let alone_ celibacy _; this isn’t the Church, and I’m not the Archbishop. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no need for discretion, either, beyond the general bounds of decency. But I trust you’ll honor those regardless of your persuasion, or whatever word it is you used.”_

_His face burns once more, but her tone and her body language suggest that he shouldn’t stretch the conversation any further._

_“I understand,” he says, lowering his head deferentially. “It will be my privilege to lead your cabinet.”_

_With a hasty bow, he retreats down the hall to his office, his mind a mess._

_To his dismay, Hubert is waiting for him when he opens the door, looming by one of his overfull bookshelves with a collection of Brigidian fables in hand. As Ferdinand enters, Hubert snaps the book it shut and turns to face him._

_“I take it congratulations are in order?” he says, with his usual affect of disinterest._

_“I have accepted Edelgard’s offer,” Ferdinand replies, trying to sound more composed than he feels. “I accept your congratulations, and in return, extend my condolences.”_

_One eyebrow arches, just barely._

_“Condolences?”_

_“I am sure you advised her against it,” says Ferdinand. “Unfortunately for you, it seems she found my qualifications quite undeniable.”_

_Hubert is quiet at that, so Ferdinand sets about brewing a pot of tea—Almyran Pine, he decides, to calm his frayed nerves. When the kettle is heating and the leaves packed, he turns back to find the other man watching him with a studious, scrutinizing gaze._

_“Did you come here just to hear the bad news?” Ferdinand prompts, rather eager to be left alone. “Or is this about the Morfan sigil-smith contracts? I told you, I would like Ladislava to complete the assessment of our current inventory before—”_

_“—I didn’t advise her against it,” Hubert cuts in._

_“Excuse me?”_

_“I didn’t advise Lady Edelgard against making you Prime Minister.”_

_“You told her of my sexual disposition,” says Ferdinand accusingly. Certainly_ Edelgard _wasn’t the one monitoring his movements these last few years, looking for signs of deviance or disloyalty._

_“So did you,” says Hubert. “If I correctly predicted the reason you asked to speak with her today.”_

_Ferdinand bristles at the thought of them discussing him, dissecting him, at the way Hubert doesn’t even bother to deny it. His face is heated again, some mix of anger and embarrassment, exacerbated by the other man’s indifference._

_“I should be grateful, then?” he says. “That you had no better candidate, despite my depravity?”_

_“Don’t be a child,” snaps Hubert. “It was an observation, nothing more. Neither she nor I ever thought you any less suitable for it.”_

_“You called me a ‘contemptible degenerate’,” Ferdinand shoots back, exasperated._

_Hubert scoffs._

_“Only arrogance of_ your _caliber would think your deficiency lies in something as trivial as your sexuality.”_

_“It isn’t trivial to me!”_

_The words come out louder than Ferdinand intended. Hubert doesn’t react, at least not that he can see. Ferdinand turns to the kettle to check its heat and hide his reddened face, and nearly jumps when a hand descends on his shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed the other man drawing near._

_“Ferdinand,” says Hubert, in a tone Ferdinand has heard him employ only once or twice before, and never directed at him — quiet, careful. Almost soft. Almost._

_Ferdinand doesn’t reply or even turn to look at him, but he doesn’t shrug off the hand either._

_“I’m...sorry.”_

_Now Ferdinand does turn, if only to confirm that it is in fact Hubert who just uttered those words. The other man is regarding him with his usual calculating gaze, but there is something else there now, something a little uncertain, regretful even. As Ferdinand faces him, Hubert drops his hand._

_“It is a matter of habit for me to underestimate the depth of your emotions,” says Hubert, in that same low tone. “And for you to find fault in yourself in the strangest of places.”_

_Ferdinand stares at him, mouth tight._

_“I have had plenty of help in that regard,” he says, a little bitterly._

_Hubert gives that little rueful half-smirk of his. He looks, if possible, a bit contrite._

_“I suppose that’s fair,” he says._

_A silence falls between them, not quite companionable. Not yet._

_“Congratulations, Ferdinand,” says Hubert at last. “You will make a fine Prime Minister.”_

_He turns to leave._

_“Despite my deficiency?” says Ferdinand petulantly._

_Hubert’s mouth turns up in a wan grin._

_“Because of it.”_

* * *

In the end, Ferdinand saves a few dozen files and letters from his father’s lake house study, consolidating them in a leather briefcase he discovers in one of the cabinets. It’s a fraction of what he sorted through in Ludwig’s Enbarr office, a project that took him nearly two weeks and left him nauseated at the sheer magnitude of the old administration’s corruption. For all Ferdinand had thought he had wrapped his mind around it, it was one thing to know his father had taken advantage of the people he claimed to serve, and another to see the same handwriting from his birthday letters on decrees enacting forced conscriptions, punishing tax schemes, the criminalization of any resistance to the authority of the nobility. 

Ferdinand sets the file outside the door, brushing the dust from his shirt and trousers as though to rid himself of those clinging memories. Then he straightens out and turns back toward the end of the hallway. Of the rooms his family personally used, only one remains. 

His parents’ bedroom is engraved with the Aegir family crest: two rearing horses facing one another beneath a rising sun, their positioning mimicking the Crest of Cichol. Around the sides, magnolia blossoms curl lavishly like the ones that once surrounded Aegir Manor.

Ferdinand can measure his summers by his distance from that crest. In some of his earliest memories, he demands to be lifted up into his mother’s arms so he can see it properly. In his childhood, he reaches up over his head to run his fingers over the dips and grooves left by the carver’s art, his lips carefully sounding out the family motto inscribed along the bottom: _Aegis, Animo, Auctoritatis._ By the time he finally comes eye to eye with the crest around his thirteenth birthday, he's already memorized every angle of the horses’ noble limbs, the position of every delicate flower of the border.

Now, as he pushes the door open, he finds himself looking down on it for the first time. The fondness he feels at seeing it is heavier, than more complicated than what he felt as a child over so many summers. But no matter his distance from those awestruck boys, Ferdinand is still an Aegir.

* * *

_It is the spring of Imperial Year 1185, and Ferdinand is twenty-two years old._

_War is a strange thing._

_When he isn’t in the field, Ferdinand is nauseated by the thought of it, by the sharp smell of blood and dark magic, by the hellish din of screams and clashing blades, by the way the impact reverberates through his arms when his lance ploughs past leather and into flesh. It haunts him as he lies in bed, as he trains with his battalion, as he gives input into tactics that will determine whether or not the Empire will triumph, and how many people will lose their lives along the way. It visits him in his lowest moments, making him wonder if it might all be preferable to die a hero than to live under the burden of all the lives he holds in his hands._

_And yet in the heat of battle, something in him burns bright and savage and euphoric._

_The sun is already setting over the mountains when the Strike Force arrives to back up the beleaguered imperial troops at the Magdred border. As they crest the hill, Ferdinand charges ahead under cover from Bernadetta’s snipers, breaking through the Kingdom’s shieldbearers to decimate their first line of mages. Beneath him, his massive warhorse bucks and twists, evading every swing and thrust and spell sent their way, the two of them a perfectly coordinated whirlwind of destruction. By the time the enemy’s frontline knights have turned around to engage him and his battalion, it’s far too late._

_As Dorothea and Petra close in to finish what he started, Ferdinand urges Aithon further in, setting his sights on the captain at the top of the opposite hill. He’s never calmer than in these moments, suspended between the wyverns in the sky and the bodies on the ground, Edelgard’s banner at his back and the enemy before him. Kingdom troops try to intercept him — grapplers, warriors, warlocks — but he evades the bulk of their attacks and endures the rest, pushing ever deeper into their ranks. Behind him, the Strike Force moves swiftly to capitalize on the chaos he wreaks._

_The first time he took a life, it was a young buck at the winter hunt at Lake Aegir. He wept, even as he felt a heady, involuntary sort of glee bubble up inside him, a vicious sense of pride to have bested such a powerful creature._

_That feeling courses through him now, potent and exhilarating as he nears the enemy captain, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Even when a well-placed lance thrust knocks him half out of the saddle, he hardly registers the hit, swinging the rest of the way to the ground to continue his charge on foot as Aithon tramples the hapless soldier who unseated him._

_Within twenty bloody, brutal minutes of the Strike Force’s arrival, it’s all over. Ferdinand pulls his axe from the lifeless body of the Kingdom captain, an older swordmaster he doesn’t recognize. His limbs begin to shiver as he turns toward his mount, some thirty feet downhill. Before he can get halfway there he’s staggering. The adrenaline courses out of him like water through a gutter, leaving him reeling and aching. He uses his lance to support himself the rest of the way._

_Aithon’s bulk is warm and comforting beneath his hands as he comes to rest his head against the horse’s sweaty, trembling neck. They are both exhausted and triumphant and shaking. Ferdinand closes his eyes, fights his nausea, forces himself to breathe deep, and waits for the feeling to pass._

_It does — it always does. He sets about combing the battlefield for survivors from either side, ferrying broken bodies to the medics’ circles as the numbness and the cold set in. He spots Linhardt with Petra, the former healing up a nasty gash in the latter’s leg. Soon after, he sees Dorothea kneeling beside one of her mages, holding his hand and singing softly as he slips from this life into the next, too far gone to be worth the healers’ time._

_On Ferdinand’s fourth trip back from the smoldering battlefield, Hubert finds him._

_“Ferdinand,” comes the greeting, clipped and careful. “Are you injured?”_

_“Nothing worth a healer’s attention,” replies Ferdinand, handing off Aithon’s reins to his lieutenant so she can finish transporting the wounded. “And yourself?”_

_“Much the same,” says Hubert, casting a glance over at the remains of the battlefield. “Walk with me.”_

_Ferdinand falls into step, struggling in his weariness and his armor to keep pace with Hubert’s long strides._

_“Is something wrong?” Ferdinand asks when Hubert doesn’t speak further; the other man has never sought him out after a battle like this. He hurries a few steps to get close enough to ask in a low voice, such that only they will hear: “Is Edelgard all right?”_

_“Lady Edelgard is fine,” says Hubert, glancing back at him. “As is the rest of the Strike Force, now that you are accounted for.”_

_“Then what is —”_

_“—Ferdinand,” says Hubert, stopping and turning to look him in the eye. His hand jerks up an inch, then falls back to his side, and his face is unusually drawn, even for him. “Your sister was among the Imperial Knights stationed here at the pass. She has been gravely injured.”_

_Ferdinand’s heart stammers._

_“My sister?” he repeats. “But my mother and sisters fled to Gloucester last autumn. You were the one who told me that they were—”_

_“—it appears she joined the army shortly after their relocation to Alliance territory, under a false name,” says Hubert. “It is my failure as a spymaster that I was unaware of this until her captain sent word just now. But I’ll ask you to censure me later. She has asked for you.”_

_Ferdinand nods dumbly, suddenly lightheaded. When he doesn’t move, Hubert places a hand on his arm, just above his elbow, and begins to shepherd him up the hill toward the outpost._

_It’s a short walk, but it seems to take years. Ferdinand doesn’t remember anything Hubert says to him on the way, if he says anything at all. A few details stick vividly in his mind — the purpling of the sky as the sun slips over the mountaintops, the sting of the wind on a cut on his temple, the stiff pressure of the guiding grip on his arm. Everything else is lost to the blood pounding in his ears._

_In the fort infirmary, thatch mattresses have been laid out in neat rows on the floor, each one bearing a body in a different state of disrepair. Bishops and gremories move along the grid, administering spells and concoctions and final rites. The room smells of sweat and blood and fear._

_As they cross the threshold, Hubert releases his arm. Before Ferdinand can think to ask him not to go, a voice calls out to him from inside the room, breaking his haze:_

_“General Aegir.”_

_It’s a tall woman, standing against the far wall with her helmet under her arm. She salutes with fist pressed over her breastplate, then gestures to the figure laid out on the bed at her feet._

_It has been nearly three years since Ferdinand last saw Lena, but it is unmistakably his sister. Her auburn hair is cut to her chin, her eyes are closed, and her once sun-browned face is very pale, making every freckle stand out like little flecks of ink in the low light._

_He hears himself utter her name, feels himself cross the room to fall to his knees at her bedside. He sees his hands reach for hers, clasping them between his own gauntleted fingers. He thinks he might cry, might already_ be _crying — from his surprise at finding her here, from his exhaustion from the fight, from the way her left leg is wrapped in layers and layers of bloody bandages where it now ends just above the knee. He feels far away from himself._

_At the touch of his hand, her eyes slip half-open, hazy and unfocused. They widen as she takes in the sight of his face._

_“Ferdinand,” she gasps, her voice rough. She tries to sit up, but winces and falls back._

_“Lena,” he says, forcing the words over the lump in his throat. “Please, do not try to move.”_

_He hurries to remove his gauntlets so he can adjust the pillow beneath her neck, brush her hair back from her face, try to make her comfortable, as though there is anything he can do that the healers won’t have tried already. He just watched a hundred soldiers die, slew nearly a dozen of them himself, but he can’t bring himself to look at the place where the rest of her leg should be._

_There’s a movement at Ferdinand’s back as the woman who called him over — Lena’s captain, he assumes — quietly steps away to give them what little privacy the room can afford._

_“They said the Black Eagles were coming,” Lena rasps, lips curling in a pained grin as he looks back to her. “I had hoped to see you fight.”_

_“I am here now,” he says, trying and failing to keep his voice level. “But I — Lena, what are you doing in this place?”_

_“I was stationed with the troops in Airmid at first,” she says. “But when I passed my Pegasus Knight certification, I was—”_

_“—no, what are you doing_ here _, in the Imperial Army?” Ferdinand interrupts, squeezing her hand, his own trembling. “Why did you not tell me you had enlisted?”_

_“So you could have sent me to some remote garrison, far from the front lines?” she asks, her mouth twisting sourly._

_“No, so I—” Ferdinand begins, but cuts himself off, scared tears welling up in his eyes. “So I could have kept you close, fought beside you. Kept you safe.”_

_“You are a general,” says Lena. As always, she sounds resolved, even weak as she is. “It is your duty to secure Her Majesty’s victory, not my safety.”_

_“You are my sister_ ,” _Ferdinand protests._

_“That doesn’t matter here,” says Lena. “Everyone is someone’s something.”_

_“But you are mine,” he presses, a sob bubbling out of his throat._

_She watches him as he works to compose himself, to be the Prime Minister Edelgard is trusting him to be. She is right, of course. To put her safety above that of any other soldier would be a betrayal of the exact principles they’re fighting for. Adrestia must come before Aegir. And yet this is his sister—his headstrong, exuberant, beloved sister—and he has never seen her in such pain, in such danger, and it feels like the very foundation of his resolve is crumbling._

_“I believe in it,” she rasps, after a long time. “The world you and Lady Edelgard want to create.”_

_He takes her hand in his again, but doesn’t know what to say._

_“I couldn’t stand being-” —she pauses to cough, and winces when she does— “I couldn’t stand being in Gloucester, doing nothing, knowing that you were fighting, that people were dying. Knowing what Father did.”_

_A fresh wave of worry washes over Ferdinand._

_“Do Mother and Cecilia know you’re here?”_

_“No,” says Lena, shaking her head weakly. “I brought it up one time, enlisting. They told me...told me it was bad enough that you were caught up in the war, that it was selfish even to consider it. Mother forbade me to speak of it again.”_

_“So you ran away,” says Ferdinand._

_She nods. He can’t tell if he’s proud or beside himself. Perhaps a bit of both._

_“That was very brave,” he says hoarsely, squeezing her hand._

_Lena shakes her head, her eyes distant and drained._

_“No braver than anyone else here,” she says._

_A long moment passes between them, just Lena’s shallow, shaky breaths and Ferdinand’s hand wrapped tightly around hers._

_“Ferdinand,” says Lena at last, her voice so small, so tired._

_“Yes?” he says, as steadily as he can._

_“I like your hair.”_

_She smiles softly as she says it, shifting her hand to twist a lock around her finger. He catches the hand, presses a kiss to her knuckles, sees her eyes slip shut. Tenderly, he returns her hand to the bed, watching the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she slips back into a troubled sleep._

_Later, her captain tells him how she was shot from the sky by Kingdom archers moments before the Strike Force arrived, her leg so badly broken it couldn’t be saved. Despite her lucidity and the success of the healers’ initial work, her condition is precarious. The next morning, when the Strike Force leaves Magdred for Garreg Mach, Ferdinand stays behind._

_After a night’s rest, Lena is a little brighter, showing a hint of the force of nature Ferdinand remembers. He helps her eat a meal of bread and roasted rabbit in the afternoon, and they talk while she has the energy—of Cecilia’s musical compositions, of summers at Lake Aegir, of Lady Edelgard’s ascent and Father’s disgrace._

_On the second day, the pain returns in force, and brings with it a fever that clips Lena’s speech and spoils her appetite. The healers move her to a more private room, where Ferdinand keeps her brow cool with a wet cloth and her hand warm in his own. To distract her, he tells her about the Strike Force, about Petra’s skill as a hunter and Linhardt’s drowsy, scattered brilliance and Hubert’s terrible taste in beverages._

_On the third day, she hardly wakes at all. She slips in and out of dreams, saying things that don’t make sense, uttering names he doesn’t recognize. Ferdinand weeps shamefully and prays to the goddess he’s forsaken that her strength will be enough._

_On the fourth day, early in the morning, she passes._

  
  


* * *

Ferdinand’s parents’ bedroom is as he remembers, spacious and richly furnished and darker than it ought to be, given the picture windows facing the lake. He pulls the curtains and waits out the dust, and the late afternoon light slants in agreeably. Beyond the general mustiness, the room smells faintly of lily and wisteria — his mother’s favorite perfume, a little bottle of it still standing on her vanity in elegant Derdriu crystal.

The closet is full of his parents’ abandoned clothes. Ferdinand thumbs the cuff of one of his father’s old summer shirts, letting his hand pass along the familiar textures and remembering when the sleeves used to dangle well past his hands.

They used to play dress-up here, the three Aegir children, even though their parents’ wardrobes at Aegir Manor were much more varied and fine. Cece would wear Mother’s blouses as dresses, belting them with the curtain cord and twirling around the house, while Lena bedecked herself in Mother’s jewelry and laughed at her own reflection. Ferdinand would don Father’s hunting jacket and cap and give speeches to an imaginary audience of important visitors, explaining the significance of each piece of artwork in the stairwell, the fascinating history of Lake Aegir and its notable dam, the meaning of the different flowers in the garden. 

Back then, becoming their parents had felt inevitable.

Now, despite the lofted ceiling and the grand windows, the room feels cramped, crowded with memories that won’t lie neatly with each other. He pulls a book of poetry off his mother’s bookshelf and thinks of the way she used to read to him when he was a little boy, her musical voice bringing every word to life. He opens the drawer of her vanity and remembers her cold fury when she’d discovered Lena showing Alice how to apply her cosmetics, the girls’ lips stained wine-red and their eyes smudged with expensive Almyran kohl. Mother had slapped them both and Cecilia had cried for hours and hours after, even though she’d had no part in any of it. She’d never been able to stomach conflict between them.

And yet here they are. Mother, tucked away in Edmund with the last of her loyal servants; Cecilia, in far-off Albinea with her new husband; Father and Lena, both years buried; and Ferdinand, running his thumb over one of Mother’s old brooches, breathing in lily and wisteria, remembering how the amber matched all their eyes so well.

* * *

_It is the winter of Imperial Year 1185, and Ferdinand is twenty-three years old._

_He doesn’t realize he’s lost faith until it’s restored._

_It’s not that he ever doubts the justness of their aims. From the start, he has believed in Edelgard’s vision of a free Fódlan, scoured of the failures of their fathers. And it isn’t that he questions the necessity of the war either — Rhea has proven time and again she will sacrifice any amount of human life to maintain the church’s absolute authority._

_No, it’s more that after five years of planning and training and fighting and falling and healing and burying body after body after body after body, Ferdinand no longer believes they can win. The Kingdom is too strong, the Church too entrenched. The Empire’s resources are drawing thin.Their few allies in the Alliance are losing patience._

_He keeps the thought to himself, of course. As always, he plays the Emperor’s champion, keeping a determined smile on his face and galvanizing words ready on his lips. He leads multi-battalion drills, attends Council meetings, clears rubble and negotiates with merchants for supplies, spends long nights with Hubert and Edelgard drafting policies for the world they are to build After. But in private, the hollow consumes him, and he looks forward to the day he will be asked to defend an indefensible post or take an untakeable stronghold, and he can stop pretending anything but death is waiting for them at the end of this righteous, bloody path._

_And then one night, the Professor wanders in out of the snow, and everything changes._

_Edelgard calls them together to share the news, leaving little time for questions before she and Hubert sweep Byleth away for a private meeting._ _In their wake, the shock ripples through the remaining Black Eagles, the six of them standing in a disbelieving half-circle in the audience chamber._

_Linhardt stares at the open doorway, adrift in his thoughts. Petra can’t stop smiling. Caspar practically bounces from foot to foot, his restless energy even more pronounced than usual. Bernadetta looks dazed; Dorothea has a relieved, bittersweet look on her face._

_They talk briefly, exchanging speculation and skepticism and cautious hope. Linhardt leaves first, somewhat abruptly; Caspar follows after a moment’s hesitation. Dorothea loops her arms around Bernadetta and Petra’s shoulders and suggests they go back to her room for a celebratory drink. As the women turn to go, Ferdinand stares off at the darkened stained glass at the back of the chamber and wonders to himself what Byleth’s return will mean for the Empire._

_The silence of the empty room settles upon him like a familiar weight. He’s already thinking of what to do with his evening — the half-finished trade proposal on his desk, the folder of profiles of the new cavalry recruits beneath it, the letter from Lorenz he’s been working up the will to answer for weeks now — when there’s a tug on his sleeve, jostling him from his thoughts._

_“Are you coming?” asks Bernadetta, looking up at him._

_He blinks, then looks to the doorway, where Dorothea and Petra stand looking at him expectantly._

_“Ah—yes, my apologies,” he says, as though he’d thought from the start he was invited._

_He falls in step, following them to the dormitories. Though he’s close with each of them, and they’re certainly close with one another, he’s never spent any real time with the three as a group. He’s always assumed it would be improper (or at least unwelcome) for him to intrude on their kinship, to cross that invisible threshold into the communion of women like he once tried to do as a boy at Lake Aegir._

_Dorothea seems more concerned with actual thresholds than metaphorical ones. She makes him take his boots off as he follows the others into her room, where the walls are draped with colorful shawls and scarves. Costume necklaces glitter on mounted hooks, an oil lamp of stained glass lights the room with a soft, warm glow, and several small watercolor paintings are pinned up above the bed. Upon closer inspection, he recognizes them as Bernadetta’s work, depicting the striking vistas around the monastery from various outlooks._

_“They’re nothing,” she blurts out when he remarks admiringly on them. “I don’t know why Thea put them up, it’s not like—”_

_“They’re lovely, Bernie,” says Dorothea firmly, and instructs them all to make themselves comfortable._

_Ferdinand sits uncertainly on the rug at the foot of Dorothea’s bed and accepts the cup of wine Petra passes him. Bernadetta is given a goblet of Noa fruit juice without having asked, suggesting some sort of established ritual to this; Ferdinand worries again he is intruding, but then Petra flops down on the foot of the bed and asks if she can braid his hair._

_“I—ah, you are welcome to try,” he says, taken aback by her directness. “I am afraid it is terribly tangled.”_

_It’s true; he hasn’t brushed it out properly for many moons. Probably since before Magdred._

_“Here,” says Dorothea, opening the topmost drawer of her dresser. She procures a wide-toothed comb and passes it to Petra. With a nod of thanks, Petra takes a sip of her rum, sets the glass aside, and gathers a careful handful of Ferdinand’s hair before beginning to work out the lowermost knots._

_He’s quite tense at first, sitting spine-straight as she teases out each snarl. It’s not that she isn’t being careful, but rather that it’s been a long time — months, perhaps — since anyone touched him outside the training grounds or the battlefield, reached for him without violent intent. His sister’s death in the spring had created a momentary closeness with the other Eagles, followed by a deep, painful distance. He drinks to mask his discomfort, and before long it eases, helped by the wine and by Dorothea’s easy conversation about the Professor’s return, memories of their time in Byleth’s class at the Officers Academy, the implausibility of a five-year sleep._

_At the mention of Byleth’s long rest, Petra cites a Brigidian legend about a warrior who slept a hundred years after a great battle, and the conversation turns to the storytelling traditions of her people. Bernadetta knows a surprising amount of the mythology from her childhood books, filling in the gaps on a few tales Petra can’t quite remember. Dorothea only knows the bits that have found their way into Fódlanian operas, which as it turns out are not exactly true to the source material. Ferdinand listens and asks questions and sips his wine and forgets to feel far away._

_“There,” says Petra at last, sounding very satisfied behind him as she pulls the comb from scalp to end without a snag. “We are ready for the braiding, now.”_

_Bernadetta climbs up onto the bed next to her to watch the process. Ferdinand and Dorothea get into a conversation about the distinctions in character between the neighborhoods of Enbarr. War and work are conspicuously absent. By the time Petra finishes the last of the small braids and tucks it into the larger plait, Bernadetta has fallen asleep on her shoulder, and the bottle of wine is long empty._

_“It is not trouble,” Petra assures Ferdinand, when he offers to carry Bernadetta back to her room. “I am happy to be doing it.”_

_“Of course,” says Ferdinand, realizing how he must have come across. “Forgive me, I did not mean anything untoward, I—”_

_“—we know, Ferdie,” says Dorothea. She gives him a gentle smile._

_He helps clean up, rinsing out their cups in the washroom down the hall while Petra helps Bernadetta back to her room. When he returns, Dorothea is already in her nightgown, a thick shawl draped around her shoulders and his boots in hand. They make a trade — cups for boots — and she puts them away while he pulls them on._

_As he straightens out, he’s surprised to feel arms encircle him, pulling him close. Dorothea holds him firmly, her face pressed to his shoulder, her soft hair brushing his cheek. For a while she’s silent, just holding the embrace until he brings his arms up to reciprocate, then squeezing him tighter for a long moment._

_At last, she releases him and steps back.._

_“We’ve been worried about you, you know,” she says softly._

_It catches him off guard, and for some reason — perhaps the wine — the words make tears well up in his eyes._

_“I have been worried about you, too,” he says, hoping the hoarseness in his voice goes unnoticed. It’s true, even if he hasn’t known how to reach out. He knows the war is wearing on her, stretching the limits of who she’s meant to be._

_“Come by any time, okay?” says Dorothea. She pulls her shawl closer around herself. “We’ll get through this together. All of us.”_

_He nods, swallowing over the lump in his throat._

_“I will,” he says. “Thank you, Dorothea. Good night.”_

_“Good night, Ferdie.”_

_The upper hallway is dark when he returns, but there is a faint glimmer of candlelight from beneath Hubert’s door. As he lets himself into his own room, Ferdinand thinks of Byleth’s return, Dorothea’s embrace, Petra’s light touch in his hair. He remembers the meals Bernadetta brought him in his room after Magdred, and the way Hubert took on all his work for weeks, unasked, and never said a word._

_He cries himself to sleep, which is not unusual. But for once, it actually brings relief. He hasn’t heard from his mother or Cecilia since he wrote to them of Lena’s passing. He isn’t certain Byleth’s might will be enough to win them the war. He still doesn’t know if his plans to restore Hrym or empower the common folk or ensure Brigid’s independence will be enough to undo the harm his father wrought, if he can even manage to accomplish any of them. But for the first time in far too long, Ferdinand has not just determination, but hope._

* * *

Ferdinand finds a number of things hidden away in his parents’ room. There is a jagged knife in a secret compartment of his father’s side of the bed, suggesting Father was more aware of the strength of his enemies than he let on. There is a box of fine jewelry under a false panel in his mother’s dresser—Mother never did trust the servants at the lake. And there is a bundle of letters beneath the mattress, bound with a burgundy velvet ribbon.

It’s getting near sundown. Ferdinand considers just taking the letters, adding them to the file of his father’s correspondence he’s already assembled in the hall, and reviewing them later. But something makes him pause — the ivoried paper, the personal placement under the bed, the delicate binding, perhaps. Taking a seat on the edge of the dusty duvet, he coaxes the knot from the ribbon and opens the first envelope.

The stationery itself is thin and fine and brittle with age. The handwriting is his father’s; the addressee is his mother. With a strange feeling in his chest, a sort of soft, sour ache, Ferdinand begins to read.

_My dearest Helenia,_ it starts. _I know I swore to write to you when the week’s business had concluded in Enbarr, but I found myself unable to wait. You have captivated my thoughts since our latest conversation in the gardens, and I fear I will not be able to focus on my duties until I gather these fond thoughts in writing and make them known to you._

It goes on to describe her beauty and virtue, noting her beautiful auburn hair and her skill in handling horses. The next letter is similarly heartfelt, apparently written from an early diplomatic assignment in Morfis. In the one after that, Ludwig waxes poetic on the beauty of his beloved’s singing voice, the refinement of her demeanor, her exceptional poise and intelligence and gentility. 

Ferdinand has read so many of his father’s letters at this point, has been ashamed and revulsed at so much. Yet nothing has quite chilled him like the earnest devotion in those yellowed pages. Were it not for the handwriting and the specifics of the recipient, they could easily be mistaken for some of his own. 

* * *

  
  


_It is the autumn of Imperial Year 1186, and Ferdinand is twenty-three years old._

_There are days he wakes up and thinks they’re still at war, startled to find a soft bed beneath him instead of the hard, cold Faerghus ground. There are days he can’t eat and nights he can’t sleep, captive to the voices of everyone he struck down or failed to save, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work of restoration. There are days he is convinced Edelgard chose wrong and the greatest service he can render to the Empire is to resign._

_And then, there are moments when he looks at the world they fought for, sees it for what it is and what it can be, and nearly cries with joy._

_There is so, so much to be done, of course. Fódlan has never been freer, but it has never been more vulnerable, either. Of fourteen cabinet seats and three governorships, only eight are filled, but the absence of a Minister of Foreign Affairs does not mean there are no foreign affairs to be handled. While Edelgard focuses on the delicate task of finding the right people to hold each position, Ferdinand and Hubert toil night and day to enact the interim policies that will let the continent heal and flourish._

_The work is complex and taxing. They often labor from first light to well past sundown, particularly Hubert, whom Ferdinand suspects has some sort of vampiric ancestry between his pale complexion, his funereal wardrobe, and his perpetual estrangement from his bed. Edelgard joins them as often as she can, guiding their thinking and mediating their more vehement disputes. On rarer occasions, they’re paid visits by Benadetta or Dorothea, when the women aren’t too busy sewing costumes or directing rehearsals for the many small productions that now play across Fódlan_ _to restore the arts and uplift the continent._

_Despite their efforts, their policies are not always received well. From the Southern Ocean to the Sreng border, they’re questioned for their youth, their idealism, their ruthlessness during the war. Even things as frivolous as the decor choices in the Imperial Palace provoke critique, somehow (“condescendingly minimalistic,” the Enbarr Inquirer writes)._

_In public, the Two Jewels take it in stride, responding to each criticism with tact and humility. Behind closed doors, over tea and coffee, they trade barbs about their more vexatious critics, Ferdinand expounding on what he’d say to their faces if he could speak freely, and Hubert describing in grisly detail all the violence he would enact if Edelgard and Ferdinand would come around to his way of doing things. Ferdinand shouldn’t laugh, but he does, every time._

_In the Red Wolf Moon, just as they instate a new governor in the former Alliance territories, Ludwig von Aegir falls ill._

_Ferdinand continues his work as usual, focusing on the allocation of the autumn’s grain harvest, the establishment of a more progressive tax code in the former Kingdom, and the renegotiation of the Empire’s debts to Albinea. He has already determined that the next time he sees his father, it will be across the imperial court, at trial. He does not feel an obligation (or even a desire) to spend any time visiting a man who necessitated the herculean task of reform and restoration, not when that time could be spent actually doing the work._

_But weeks pass, and Ludwig does not recover. His health deteriorates little by little, day by day, until the attending doctor sends word that he will not be fit to stand judgment on the appointed date in the Ethereal Moon. And so, at Edelgard’s urging, Ferdinand carves out an afternoon, drinks two cups of Almyran pine, and makes the journey to the Redstone district, where his father has been held since the war._

_While the accommodations aren’t as lavish as the ministerial residence in which he spent his house arrest, the little brick apartment is hardly a prison. A guard greets Ferdinand with a salute as he enters the spare, tidy sitting room, removing his cloak and scarf and hanging both on a hook on the wall. As he waits, he takes in the crisp space with its muslin curtains, hardback chairs, and raw wood floor._

_At his entrance, he hears footsteps from further in. After a moment, a woman appears in the inner door, dressed in a physician’s stiff white smock, her well-lined face impassive as she dips her head in a slight bow._

_“Prime Minister,” she says. “We’ve been expecting you.”_

_Without further preamble, she leads him to the bedroom, where he comes face to face with his father for the first time since the Officers Academy._

_Ludwig von Aegir lies propped on an assortment of pillows, breath rattling unsteadily through his heavy frame. The curtains are drawn and an oil lamp burns on the nightstand, casting uneven shadows across his face, more sunken and sallow than Ferdinand remembers. The hands that lie on top of the comforter are spotted and thick-veined, stripped of their many ostentatious rings. Only his embossed wedding band remains._

_Ludwig’s eyes open slowly at the sound of his son’s footsteps._

_“Ferdinand,” he greets. His voice is rough, though less cold than Ferdinand had anticipated._

_“Father.”_

_“They told me you were coming,” Ludwig begins, pausing to cough. “Still, I had my doubts.”_

_“You have the Emperor to thank,” says Ferdinand stiffly. “That is, if you see my presence as cause for thanks.”_

_Ludwig doesn’t respond to that. They stare at each other a moment, impassive._

_“Help me sit,” says Ludwig. Ferdinand acquiesces, stepping forward to ease his father up against the headboard, noting the frailty of his limbs, the deep lines of his face, the grey of what hair is left. Six years seem to have aged him twenty._

_“So,” says Ludwig at last, when he is settled, and Ferdinand has stepped back. “I trust you didn’t come here just to stare at me like some empty-headed simpleton.”_

_Ferdinand feels a sort of relief at the familiar asperity._

_“It is good to see that your fall from grace has not dulled your tongue, Father.”_

_“Yes, well,” says Ludwig with a cold smile, “You may have taken my title, my territory, my family, and my legacy, but you will find my dignity harder to strip away.”_

_“Your dignity?” Ferdinand repeats._

_Ludwig’s lip curls in a hint of contempt._

_“If you came here expecting me to beg your forgiveness, you will be disappointed.”_

_“Expecting, no,” says Ferdinand levelly. “Hoping, perhaps. Though it is not_ my _forgiveness you should be seeking.”_

_“I have never claimed to be perfect,” says Ludwig. “But I will not apologize for doing what I deemed right.”_

_“What you deemed right?” Ferdinand echoes, feeling his blood run a little faster for the first time since he entered the room. “You thought it ‘right’ to condemn the Hresvelg children to torture and execution?”_

_Ludwig scoffs._

_“You sent thousands to their deaths,” he says. “You’d damn me for a dozen?”_

_“We fought the war for a reason,” says Ferdinand. “To break the Church’s stranglehold, to rout the corruption that plagued the nobility across all Fódlan. You traded the Hresvelg heirs, and Hrym, for nothing more than love of power.”_

_“Terribly convenient that pursuing your lofty principles also put you in power,” Ludwig remarks. “You and the girl-emperor, and all the other children playing at governance with you.”_

_“We have done more to help the common people of Adrestia in six months than you did in twenty years.”_

_“And in another six months, it will all be undone,” says Ludwig. “Do you ever wonder why the system of nobility has endured for more than a thousand years? The common people do not need freedom. They need protection, stability. They need something to believe in, more than the banality of their lives. Whether that’s the Church or the nobility, it doesn’t matter. But you’ve torn down both, and now it’s only a matter of time before all those torches and pitchforks you rallied against the Archbishop are pointing back at you.”_

_“Not if we build the right systems,” says Ferdinand stubbornly. “Not if we make it not only possible — commonplace, even — for people of all circumstances to be educated, to share in the leadership of their communities.”_

_Ludwig laughs, which turns quickly into more coughing._

_“You were always naïve to the point of stupidity,” he says, when he has recovered. “I have no doubt you believe what you’re saying. But no matter the story the Hresvelg girl told you, your war was about consolidating power, not distributing it. When your social experiment fails, and you realize she’s just another despot, you’ll make the same choices I did. I guarantee it.”_

_Ferdinand bristles._

_“I will never be like you,” he says, voice deadly quiet._

_“You’re right,” says Ludwig. His eyes are clear and cold, despite his infirmity. “I protected our family and the Aegir name. You let your sister die on some backwater battlefield.”_

_Ferdinand opens his mouth to respond, white-hot anger and grief rushing sharp words onto his tongue, but he pulls them back at the last second with lips pressed tight. Consciously, he uncoils his hands, which had balled into gloved fists at his sides at his father’s words._

_When Ferdinand does not reply, Ludwig sighs, turning his eyes to the curtained windows._

_“I suppose I should be grateful that my only son is not just a heretic, but a deviant,” he says, “so the Aegir line will end without further debasement.”_

_Ferdinand keeps his silence, and to his own surprise, his calm._

_It doesn’t shock or even bother him that his father knows. The same papers that decry Edelgard’s torching of Adrestian tradition love to depict Ferdinand in a certain light — mercurial, womanish, prone to flights of quixotic passion — and they have eagerly reprinted rumors of his wartime dalliances as evidence of his instability. To those their new order no longer serves, his zeal is seen as hysteria, his compassion as soft-heartedness, his love of art and beauty as foppish vanity._

_And yet these qualities are precisely what Ferdinand has come to like most about himself. They are the things his father tried to scare and squeeze out of him as a boy, to harden him against the world he was raised to rule, to make him believe his obligation ended with his own blood, his own kind. Ludwig had almost succeeded, too — Ferdinand knows only a hair’s breadth separates this world from one where he lacked the humility to believe Edelgard’s story, or the viciousness to follow her into battle, or the imagination to seek a crestless, churchless Empire._

_Thanks to his father, he survived the war._

_In spite of him, he will be the Prime Minister Edelgard’s revolutionary new Fódlan needs._

_“Well?” says Ludwig._

_Ferdinand stirs from his thoughts to find the man staring at him with obvious disappointment._

_“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” Ludwig asks._

_“It appears I do not,” says Ferdinand. “Thank you for your time, Father. I am glad I came. If we meet again, may the court deliver justice. If we do not, may the Goddess deliver mercy.”_

_Ludwig begins to say something in response, but Ferdinand is already stepping into the hallway, pulling the door gently shut behind him, making his way back to the sitting room. He thanks the doctor for her care, dons his cloak and scarf, and slips out into the streets of Enbarr._

_As he makes for the palace, he keeps his strides quick and long, like his mother always urged. There is work to do, and wrong to be righted, and much to learn along the way._

* * *

The autumn light has just begun to warm with sunset colors when Ferdinand shuts the door to his parents’ room. 

He leaves the love letters, in the end. He doesn’t need them to remember his father’s humanity or his own fallibility, and if they had meant much to his mother she would have had them collected by now. He leaves his mother’s Derdriu perfume and her fine summer dresses and her elegant jewelry. Anything he doesn’t take that will not serve a function in the Governors’ Academy will be thrown out or auctioned off to fund the renovations. The topaz collection should fetch a good price.

He passes Cecilia’s room with its dusty scores and dog-eared libretti, then Lena’s with its books of fables and mythologies, then his own, and starts down the stairs. He pauses on the landing, considering the great painted warhorse again. He hopes they will keep her on the wall, that Fódlan’s future leaders will retain an appreciation for art and magnificent horses. But he would understand if they didn’t. Sentiment aside, it is a marvelous painting, one a collector would surely pay generously to own. 

As Otrera stares down her noble nose at him, he gives her a smile, hoping a little indulgently that it’s not the last they share.

—-

_It is the summer of Imperial Year 1187, and Ferdinand is twenty-four years old._

_The new year has brought many promising developments. Gloucester’s surplus grain stores were enough to help Charon and Galatea limp through the winter; the weather in Bergliez since the spring planting has been fair and mild, raising hopes for a strong harvest. Though Ashe declined to take on interim governorship of Faerghus, he has proved an adept advisor to the woman who did accept the role, a well-respected member of the old Blaiddyd cabinet, and Faerghan attitudes towards the Emperor have begun to thaw. Claude has honored his word and not launched an invasion from Almyra (yet)._

_Nearer to home, Petra and Edelgard are close to hammering out an agreement to restore Brigid’s sovereignty, a maneuver for which Ferdinand has been rallying support among the other ministers. Count Varley and Duke Gerth have been tried, stripped of their estates, and exiled from Fódlan, a fate Duke Aegir would likely have shared had he not passed away at the start of the Guardian Moon. And to Ferdinand’s particular delight, the Enbarr Opera House has a date for reopening, with a renovated audience hall and new ticketing structure that should enable many more people to enjoy Mittelfrank’s productions._

_Just when Ferdinand has finally begun to feel at home in the role of Prime Minister, his traitorous psyche introduces a new complication: a burgeoning attachment to one Hubert von Vestra, Minister of the Imperial Household._

_His first sign of the betrayal is a simple observation, which is that in the right light, at the right angle, Hubert is rather handsome. Unfortunately, it turns out that at this time of year, the right light and the right angle are both regular occurrences at their thrice-weekly meetings, which they take in a private corner of the imperial gardens under a trellis heavy with star jasmine. As time goes on, Ferdinand takes to gazing out over the verbena and the bottlebrush when they talk, rather than risk observing the stretch of Hubert’s thin summer shirt across his broad, bony shoulders, or the way the morning sun makes those piercing eyes gem-bright._

_The next sign of trouble is a niggling curiosity about Hubert’s personal life, which is particularly unfortunate considering the man has made a career of being inscrutable. Despite their decade of acquaintance, Ferdinand realizes he knows next to nothing about Hubert’s childhood, or his interests, or what he does when he’s not gathering intelligence and piling up bodies for the Empire. Unable to help himself, he begins sneaking such questions into their tea and coffee conversations, and to his surprise, Hubert actually answers them — not always fully, or straightforwardly, but with an openness Ferdinand couldn’t have imagined in their discordant early years._

_The third and most damning sign comes when the Enbarr Inquirer begins to print rumors that they are already an item, and Ferdinand finds himself not indignant but shamefully charmed._

_Hubert seems to take this development in stride, giving no sign he is even aware of the gossip, as though anything goes on in Enbarr without his knowledge. He continues to show up to tea and coffee, to working meals, to late-night policy sessions in Ferdinand’s office. He continues to make playfully snide remarks on Ferdinand’s personal style and bring him news of their friends’ activities from across the continent, and he continues to slip rare bits of devastating praise into the letters and reports that travel back and forth between their offices._

_Ferdinand attempts to act similarly unaffected. But unlike the imperial spymaster, he has precious little practice with remaining aloof. All too often, he finds himself straining the bounds of professionalism, missing Hubert’s words when he gets lost in the soothing rasp of his voice, or wishfully trying to detect coded messages of deeper affection in intelligence briefs and infrastructure assessments._

_It should concern him that a growing number of their citizens think that Her Majesty’s left and right hand men are carrying on some kind of illicit affair. And yet when Ferdinand reads each salacious headline — “caught leaving the Minister’s office well after midnight”; “witnessed on an amorous weekend stroll through the Lycaon Imperial Park”; “said by those familiar to be regularly warming the Prime Minister’s bed” — all he feels is a petulant sort of yearning._

_Finally, at the end of the Blue Sea Moon, he gets a few weeks’ distraction from his infatuation as Mittelfrank prepares to host its grand reopening. The Emperor has commissioned a new work based on a popular tale from Fódlan’s secular folklore, ‘Phostereum and the Eagle’; the composer is a former noble from Kleiman, the librettist a commoner from Ordelia, and the chorus a motley crew of talented performers from across the continent and even beyond._

_When the premiere arrives, Dorothea performs radiantly as the heroine Hatena, who fights to liberate her husband after he is imprisoned for defying unjust laws. The crowd, made up of Mittelfrank’s oldest patrons and many newer, rougher faces, is enraptured as she delivers a masterful cadenza during her final aria. Despite the oppressive heat of the hall, the audience demands six curtain calls, every able person on their feet._

_Afterwards, Ferdinand lingers at the reception, though he told Hubert he’d come by later to sort out some policy revisions. With some charm and his cavalier’s dexterity, he manages to get through Dorothea’s thicket of admirers to shower praise upon her, but doesn’t dare take any more of her time, not with the receiving line spilling out into the atrium. He hobnobs with older ex-nobles he remembers from his boyhood, with first-time attendees who are still starry-eyed at the spectacle of the performance, and with the waitstaff, who bring out bottle after bottle of libations at Manuela’s instruction. As evening turns to night, the chandeliers twinkle, the wine flows, and happy babble fills the halls of the Opera House._

_When midnight looms, Ferdinand slips away. As he goes, he waves to Edelgard where she stands making conversation with the Ordelian librettist and the production’s lead tenor. In reply, she winks at him._

_He doesn’t think much of it, despite the uncharacteristic playfulness of the gesture. The wine and the heat and the roaring success of the reopening have made him a little giddy. He hums Dorothea’s last aria all the way back to the palace, admiring Enbarr’s architecture, its many fountains and statues, the star-studded velvet blue of the night sky._

_When he knocks at Hubert’s study, he hears the soft whirring of gears that herald the disarming of traps, and a moment later the door cracks open. Inside, warm sigil-light spills over the broad rosewood desk, reflecting off the many colorful jars and vials that line the bookshelves. Hubert is dressed down to his charcoal grey waistcoat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, fingers ink-flecked, gloves and brooch conspicuously missing._

_“Ferdinand,” he says, with some surprise. “It’s rather late.”_

_“My apologies,” says Ferdinand. “The opera was wonderful, but long, and of course you understand the importance of making the rounds after, particularly on a special occasion.”_

_“I would have expected nothing less,” says Hubert. “Why are you here?”_

_“Minister Hevring’s letter of concern regarding the treasury consolidation proposal,” Ferdinand reminds him. “I told you this morning I would help you reconcile the drafts.”_

_  
_ _“So you did,” says Hubert. “And as you might also recall, I told you to go enjoy the opera and let me handle it.”_

_“Nonsense,” says Ferdinand brightly. “We have co-authored this proposal from the start. I will not have you stealing the glory at the last minute. Now, are you going to let me in?”_

_Hubert sighs, stepping back from the door to usher Ferdinand inside. Ferdinand’s wishful brain reads fondness into the sound, knowing there likely is none._

_“Now,” says Ferdinand, unbuttoning his jacket as Hubert shuts the door behind them. “Where shall we begin?”_

_They get to work, Ferdinand reading through Minister Hevring’s long letter and summarizing his requests while Hubert pores through the original proposal to locate the relevant subsections. They debate the merits of some of the suggested revisions, their arguments efficient and well-practiced, and Hubert marks the agreed-upon changes in his neat, clipped hand. Within an hour or so, they’ve arrived at a new draft._

_Ferdinand comes around Hubert’s desk so they can review it together. At this point, he’s lost his jacket, cravat and gloves, and through their shirts he can feel the heat of Hubert’s shoulder a scant inch from his own. He tries not to stare at the pale violet mottling of Hubert’s magic-marred hands as they hold the papers between them. He tries not to breathe too hard, or bump his arm against Hubert’s any more than he can avoid, lest he give himself away._

_They’ve just reached the penultimate page, the two of them standing in silence but for the soft scrape of the papers, when a knock on the door makes them both jump._

_“Who, at this time of night…?” Hubert mutters, setting the draft down on his desk and moving to answer. Ferdinand doesn’t miss the glow of a sigil in his palm and stands back, out of sight of the doorway, but when Hubert sees who’s at his step he abandons the spell immediately._

_“Lady Edelgard,” Hubert says, opening the door wide. “Is something wrong?”_

_“No, no, nothing like that,” says the Emperor, stepping inside. She’s still dressed in the fine gown she wore to the premiere, a beribboned bottle in her hands. “You always assume the worst.”_

_Hubert makes a quiet noise of indignation._

_“Not always,” he objects. “But I do when the Emperor of Fódlan turns up at my door in the dead of night, without forewarning.”_

_“I shouldn’t need to send a gaggle of heralds just to — oh, hello Ferdinand,” says Edelgard, catching sight of him where he stands behind Hubert’s desk. Her eyes flick up and down his frame, taking in his state of relative undress. “I hope I’m not interrupting something…?”_

_Both men flush immediately. Hubert’s face is full crimson as Ferdinand rushes to explain._

_“The motion to unify the continental treasury,” he says, sweating from more than just the summer heat. “Minister Hevring had requested some rather last-minute changes, and we thought it would be prudent to ensure none of them would provoke ire from the regional overs—”_

_“—ah, yes, the treasury proposal,” says Edelgard, cutting him off. “I commend you both on your unimpeachable work ethic.”_

_“I did not mean to make it a matter of competition,” Ferdinand mumbles, aware of his record._

_“And I didn’t take it as one,” says Edelgard. She holds up the bottle in her hands, turning to present it to Hubert. “I came to deliver this, with Dorothea’s regards. She said that she could stomach you missing the premiere, but not the party.”_

_Hubert takes the bottle, his face still beet-red. He chokes out a noise that might be a thank you. Ferdinand’s heart clenches realizing the embarrassment he’s caused._

_There is a long and painful moment of silence._

_“I’ll leave you both to it, then,” says Edelgard, looking from Hubert to Ferdinand and back again, seeming unperturbed. “Good luck with the treasury proposal, Ministers. I’ll see you in the morning.”_

_And before either of them can say anything more, she sweeps out, leaving the two of them staring across the room at each other, mutually mortified._

_“Hubert,” says Ferdinand, after a beat. “I am terrifically sorry. I — it was never my intention to bring you shame, least of all in front of Ede—in front of Lady Edelgard.”_

_Hubert just stares at him blankly._

_“I...for a while now, I have been meaning to set the record straight with the papers,” Ferdinand continues, trying to preserve their hard-won partnership. “It is not fair to you, that just because you associate with me, it is assumed you share my inclinations.”_

_“You know I don’t care about that,” says Hubert, his voice rough, his hands clutching the bottle of wine._

_“Still,” says Ferdinand, agitated. “I would not want to sully your good name with—”_

_He’s cut off by a short, sharp laugh._

_“You must not be familiar with my name, von Aegir,” says Hubert._

_Ferdinand hesitates._

_“I...pardon me?”_

_“My reputation is a foregone conclusion, with or without the Inquirer’s imaginings,” says Hubert. “Yours, on the other hand — well, rumors of someone like you, with his pick of amenable bachelors, associating with someone of my nefarious character...that would certainly reflect poorly on you.”_

_Ferdinand stands a little straighter, concern turning to indignity._

_“I wholeheartedly disagree,” he protests. “You are a trusted advisor to Her Majesty, a widely renowned mage, and a devoted servant of the Empire. You are meticulous, thoughtful, diligent, and fair. Your cleverness is unmatched in Her Majesty’s court or any other, as far as I am concerned, and you work tirelessly to bring justice and prosperity to Fódlan. If it were just a matter of reputation, I would assert that any woman would be lucky to have your affections.”_

_His face is burning as he finishes, but Hubert is staring at him with a pained expression._

_“A shame, then,” he says, so quietly Ferdinand almost misses it, “that my heart does not stir for any woman.”_

_Ferdinand softens, realizing that in a preoccupation with his foolish attraction, he’s failed to consider that Hubert might be grappling with his own matters of the heart. He steps forward, around the desk, to lay a sympathetic hand on his friend’s arm._

_“In time,” he says comfortingly. “It makes sense that someone so extraordinary would not be easily moved to love. You will meet her eventually. Or not, with no great loss — after all, in Edelgard’s new way of things, there is no shame in never taking a —”_

_“—Ferdinand, you fool, I am not — that is — argh.”_

_With a noise of impatience, Hubert reaches for him. Before Ferdinand can register what’s going on, he’s tasting the faint bitterness of Dagdan coffee, smelling the familiar spice of Hubert’s cologne, feeling those long fingers thread into the hair at the nape of his neck as he is thoroughly kissed._

_“O—oh,” says Ferdinand stupidly when Hubert pulls back, both of them breathing a little too quickly._

_“Yes?” Hubert prompts, his voice hoarse. His hand hovers near Ferdinand’s collar, questioning._

_“Yes,” says Ferdinand emphatically, and leans back in._

  
  


* * *

  
  
It is the autumn of Imperial Year 1189, and Ferdinand is twenty-six years old.

As he exits the lake house, he carries in his hand a leather briefcase of his father’s correspondence, and in his breast pocket a faded, folded playbill. He locks the front door, brushes the dust from his riding jacket, and turns back towards the gardens, where the shadows of the oaks and apple trees have grown long. Two figures stand at the gate, conversing from either side of it in quiet voices — Alice Holton, the groundskeeper, and Hubert von Vestra, Minister of the Imperial Household.

Both turn at the sound of Ferdinand’s footsteps, and smile at the sight of him.

“Hubert,” Ferdinand greets as he approaches, surprised. “I thought you were staying at the manor tonight.”

“That was my intent,” says Hubert. “But the weather was agreeable, and I thought you might linger. Besides, your new regional overseer didn’t seem to want or need my assistance.”

“As expected,” Ferdinand laughs. “Evelynne always did abhor a meddler.”

He turns to Alice, who resembles her mother more than ever, her long brown hair tied back in a tidy plait.

“Thank you for your assistance,” he says warmly, handing her the house key, which she tucks away in a pocket of her leather apron. “Should I assume the two of you do not need to be introduced?”

“Correct,” says Alice. “Your letters were more than enough to guess the identity of the tall, vaguely vampiric-looking stranger standing in my apple orchard.”

Ferdinand smiles at Hubert, who endures the description without complaint. 

“Well, you are two of my favorite people,” says Ferdinand, “so I am glad you have finally met.”

“I’d wager you have dozens of favorite people,” Alice remarks, laughing. 

“He does,” Hubert confirms. Ferdinand makes a face at both of them.

“Well, I’ll take it, even if I’m sharing the distinction with half of Enbarr,” says Alice. “Now, it’s a long ride back to the manor. Won’t you stay for dinner?”

“Oh, we could not possibly imp—”

“—I know your noble upbringing requires you to decline at least three times before you can admit you want to, Ferdinand,” Alice interrupts. “Please just stay. Your partner looks like he could use a proper meal.”

Hubert looks a little bit indignant. Ferdinand smiles helplessly.

“All right, then,” he relents. “Though I had better stable Allegretta properly if we’re staying longer.”

“Already done,” says Alice. “I took her in with his lovely Nyx when they arrived.”

“I should have expected no less.”

They follow Alice up the path to the groundskeeper’s cottage, where smoke drifts from the chimney and the smell of spiced meat wafts from an open window. Inside, an olive-skinned man stirs the contents of a wide skillet while a woman with greying hair supervises a tiny child’s play.

Alice introduces her husband, Javier, and takes the baby from her mother so Genevieve can exclaim over Ferdinand’s height, his hair, his resemblance to his mother. The older woman recounts a time he barely reached her knee, expresses her general approval of his policies (and offers her critique of a specific few), and insists on opening a cask of the season’s best cider for their guests.

Over supper, the five of them discuss the recent harvest, the resurgence of Hrymish metallurgy and glassworking, the construction of the new Governors’ Academy. Hubert is surprisingly conversational, his hand on Ferdinand’s knee, his attention on their hosts. For his part, Ferdinand holds baby Elena in his lap for as long as she will tolerate it, exclaiming over her every little gesture and ignoring the exasperated looks Alice and Hubert give each other at his behavior.

While Ferdinand assists Genevieve with the washing up, Alice goes upstairs to nurse, and Hubert tinkers with the sigils on Javier’s prosthetic hand, coaxing a little more responsivity out of the copper-wrought joints. By the time Ferdinand has talked their way out of a third serving of harvest-fresh apple crumble, the moon has begun its ascent.

It’s too late and insufficiently pressing to return to Aegir Manor that night. So, when Alice proffers a set of clean linens, they make plans to stay. 

Hubert suffers patiently through Ferdinand’s speeches on the meaning of the different flowers in the garden, the fascinating history of Lake Aegir and its notable dam, the significance of each piece of artwork in the stairwell. He declines to be shown the high rock off of which Ferdinand and Alice and Lena used to jump into the lake as foolhardy children, but accompanies Ferdinand down to the dock, where the two of them sit on the old wood and listen to the singing of the cicadas, the lapping of the lake, the faint crying of Alice’s infant daughter. They talk, a mix of personal and political, and breathe in the damp, cool air.

When it grows too cold to stay, they make their way back up the hill towards the house, hands entwined. At the top, Ferdinand pauses to look back down at the moon’s reflection in the water, his mind still restless. He thinks of Old Carolynn’s tales of the records written in the stars, of the pride and the shame he feels to be a son of Aegir, of children who will grow up and know war only from their parents’ stories.

A light touch on his shoulder stirs him back to the stone path. As he turns, Hubert’s fingers brush his hair back to gently tuck a spray of white aster behind his ear. Ferdinand closes his eyes, feeling his partner’s warmth envelop him, Hubert’s lips descending to softly press against his own.

Ferdinand is not as young or as fearless as he once was under this moon. But as they make their way inside, passing through rooms that will soon be home to Fódlan’s brightest young minds, he cannot imagine being more full of love.

  
  



End file.
